


A Story About Us

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, i'm not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1471780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about us, you think, as you drive away from the desert, listening to the man on the radio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Story About Us

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this was actually written on my phone while I was still on the elliptical at the gym, if that gives you any idea of how much I absolutely adored A Story About Them.
> 
> Also, I noticed recently the link to the weather was down. I fixed it, but just in case there are more problems with it in the future, it's Dark Doo Wop by MS MR.

This is a story about us, you think, as you drive away from the desert, listening to the man on the radio.

It is not a story about the us that is currently occupying this car, you think, and the voice on the radio repeats. It is a story about an us that no longer is.

You know how the story ends, but the voice on the radio tells it to you anyway, and you cannot do anything else but listen.

You do not know where the man who was not short came from; you do not know where you came from, either. You do not know his family or his friends, or if he had either of those things, aside from you. You are not a man of many words, and so this, this radio broadcast, is the only eulogy he will ever get. 

The man who was not short was and was not many things. He was not short, just as you are not tall, and he was not particularly smart, just as you are particularly smart, and he was not very attentive, just as you are very attentive. He was often happy, just as you are not, and he enjoyed doing crosswords, just as you do not, and he thought, sometimes, of doing nice things, just as you do not.

None of this matters, of course. People are more than a sum of their parts, more than a list of traits read in a gentle, soothing voice on the radio. But the man who was not short no longer is, and so all that is left of him are these lists, read by a voice on the radio. 

That is not true, you think, and you turn off the radio in anger, nearly snapping off the dial. There is more left of the man who was not short, within yourself. He was, and still is, more than softly read lists, and you think of him as he was, beside you, for an immeasurably long period of time. These thoughts are not the sort that can be put into words, and the man on the radio does not try. Instead, he talks about how you drive the car containing you and your new partner back the way you have come, towards Night Vale and away from the desert and what the desert holds.

Your new partner says that he is hungry, and you grunt something that could be construed as assent. He mentions that he has been having a craving for invisible pie all day, and so you hang a left at the next intersection.

As you sit down at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, your new partner engages you in friendly small talk and banter. Your replies are largely monosyllabic and distant. Your new partner does not seem to mind. This is not because he is being sensitive or understanding. It is because he only wishes to talk, and does not particularly care whether or not you listen or appear to understand. He orders a chicken quesadilla. You order a turkey club, although you are not hungry. 

As you sit there, in your booth at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, as the soft strains of the radio drift to your table from the speakers in the ceiling, you hear the man on the radio say something about [the weather.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yFi_EXAC8)

-

The dull-eyed waitress returns with your food once the weather has finished. Your new partner digs into his food hungrily. You take a single bite of your club, and it settles in your stomach like lead. You do not take another. 

Instead, you turn to the window. It is no longer day, and the sky, now mostly void, does not appear to look back. This tells you very little, as appearances often mean nothing at all.

You are not a man inclined to reminiscence, but today, the past seems a better topic for thought than the present or the future, and so it is the only remaining avenue your thoughts have to turn to. You think of the man who was not short. You think of him almost but never quite inviting you to have dinner, of him picking up stray cats you passed in your many drives out to the desert, despite how dangerous they were, of him doing the same crossword with the same answers every day, and always enjoying it. 

You think of the unfinished crossword puzzle that is still sitting inside your car, with only five of the many “TEETH”s filled in, and of the perfectly nondescript house you dropped him off at every night, exactly like the house you yourself went home to in every way, except for a small potted cactus that sat on the porch, and of the many ties that sit, uncounted, in your closet, one for every innumerable year you worked together. 

You would think of more, perhaps, but your new partner finished the last of his fries, and asks if you are ready to go. You tell him that you are.

So, says your new partner, as you walk back to the car and get in, do we start tomorrow?

You tell him that you do. As you turn the key, the radio crackles to life. 

Great, says your new partner. Just drop me off at my house tonight, and I’ll see you in the morning. 

He does not tell you where he lives, and you do not ask. Instead, you follow the same path you have always followed, arriving, as the man on the radio tells you that you are arriving, at a perfectly nondescript house, in the same place that you always dropped off the man who was not short. There is no cactus on the porch. The house is perfectly nondescript in every way. The man who is your new partner nods at you as he gets out, and does not look back and wave as he goes into the house, as the man who was not short always did.

For a moment, you sit in the car without moving. You think about the many places you could go that are not this town. You do not know where you come from, nor where you could go, but perhaps there is somewhere. 

You put the car into drive, and go back to your own perfectly nondescript house. You park your car, and turn it off, cutting off the radio as you do so. You pick up the unfinished crossword sitting on your dashboard, and you walk inside. There is a radio that you do not usually use sitting on your dining room table, placed there by the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home. She has also turned it on, so that you can hear the man on the radio as he talks about you. 

You sit down at the table, heavily. You consider buying a cactus to put on your porch. You consider taking off your jacket and tie. You consider going to bed. Instead of doing any of these things, you continue to sit at your dining room table. You put the crossword puzzle down, and you pull a pen from the inside pocket of your jacket.

Tomorrow, on your way to work you will pick up the man who is your new partner, except you will no longer think of him that way. Tomorrow, the man who is your new partner will be the man who is not short. Tomorrow, you will not think of any other man who has ever gone by that name. 

Tomorrow is not yet here. 

You finish the crossword.

The man on the radio is about to stop talking. You know this, because he just told you. You may or may not be crying; the man on the radio still will not say. 

Before he goes, you think: this is a story about us.


End file.
